Apart from His promise that we will have happiness and peace of mind if we surrender to Him and to the fate that He has determined for us, Allah also promises us that He will allow those who have faith and trust in Him and perform good actions to have a good life in this world:

Anyone who acts rightly, male or female, being a believer, We will give them a good life and We will recompense them according to the best of what they did. (Surat an-Nahl: 97)

There are many good things in this world. In order to have a good life, one thing we need is friends we can trust and with whom we can enjoy a relationship of mutual affection and real intimacy. Allah lends His support to His servants who have sincere faith in Him and who trust Him by giving them friends who are good Muslims like themselves-trustworthy, honourable people who are friends of Allah. That is why a Muslim is never lonely. One of Allah's greatest gifts to the faithful is to ensure that they always have friends with them - fellow-Muslims whom they can trust, whom they love and respect and whom they hold in greater honour than they hold themselves.

One of the greatest difficulties for the ignorant-those who follow a code of ethics different from that outlined in the Qur'an-is not having anyone near them who can be a friend to them; they have no one on whose wisdom and sincerity they can rely, who will stand by them in all circumstances and who will give them support based on sincere affection rather than on any desire for personal advantage.

Friendships between people who do not follow the values set out in the Qur'an and exemplified in the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, always contain an element of conflict of interest. These people may not have anyone near them to support them if they find themselves in material or emotional difficulties. This never happens with friendships between Muslims. Muslims have such high standards that they will give priority to meeting the needs of other people even when they themselves are in need. Allah describes these qualities of the believers in the following verse:

Those who were already settled in the abode, and in belief, before they (the emigrants) came, love those who have emigrated to them and do not find in their hearts any need for what they have been given and prefer them to themselves even if they themselves are needy. It is the people who are safe-guarded from the avarice of their own selves who are successful. (Surat al-Hashr: 9)

A good Muslim does not enjoy being in the company of those who do not call on the name of Allah, who rebel against destiny and who have a liking for idle talk. That is why Allah ensures that Muslims provide support for each other. The faithful constantly call on the name of Allah, speak enthusiastically of the beautiful things He has created and give thanks for His gifts. Everything they say has a reason and a purpose; in everything they say there is joy, wisdom and beauty, and strength, truth and majesty. Their words never cause distress, pessimism or despair and never lead people to give up hope that a solution will be found; their words are always hope-giving, like an announcement of good news, bringing enlightenment to those who listen and opening up new horizons for them; their words provide endless food for thought and create a feeling of spaciousness and relaxation in the listener. No one offends anyone else, no one says hurtful things and no one speaks with envy or derision; instead, there is real friendship, joy and affection, as there is the honesty of speaking the truth, and real and genuine counsel in the affairs of this life and the path to the next.

Another characteristic of a good life is that it is lived in clean, healthy and comfortable surroundings. Muslims always choose the cleanest and most healthy alternative. The conditions in which the ignorant live, however, are generally dirty, disorderly and depressing. Such people prefer out-of-the-way places that are dark and smoky, even for recreation-although the soul of man was created in such a way as to be able to feel pleasure in the cleanness and beauty of Heaven.

Allah may make some of the faithful rich, and if He does, it is through His grace and favour, but the faithful never pursue the material benefits of this world as an end in itself. Their only desire is to obtain Allah's grace and mercy, and to gain the Garden that Allah has beautified with an infinite number of good things. Thus they use the blessings and the wealth Allah has given them in the best possible way, in order to obtain His blessing. They are not wasteful. They protect those in need and enable them to enjoy the good things Allah has made available. They also use everything they own in the best possible way as a means of causing the teachings outlined in the Qur'an to become more widely known and practised.

Unlike the faithful, those who deny Allah often have a life of never-ending distress and suffering. Even though they may be rich and have all the wordly goods they could ask for, Allah gives such people heaviness of heart:

When Allah desires to guide someone, He expands his breast to Islam. When He desires to misguide someone, He makes his breast narrow and constricted as if he were climbing up into the sky. That is how Allah defiles those who disbelieve. (Surat al-An'am: 125)

The only way for us to have a good life both in this world and the next is to love Allah, to fear Him, to obtain His friendship and to respect the rules and limitations set out in the Qur'an.

1. http://www.therevival.co.uk/articles/hadith_nonviolence.htm

The Unknown Side of Jellyfish

Everyone knows of jellyfish and how interesting and strange they are to us. However, the jellyfish, a creature made up of fully 95 percent water, also has a number of surprising features that are not generally known. Some of its varieties, for example, confuse their enemies by emitting light, while some others produce deadly poisons within their bodies.

Jellyfish can live in almost any climate conditions, and most are dangerous to other creatures. The jellyfish has a transparent structure and tentacles dangling from the lower part of its body. In some species, there is a poisonous liquid present in the tentacles. The jellyfish catches its prey by squirting this poison and killing its enemies. Those jellyfish species lacking poison are not, of course, defenseless. Some of them use special light-producing cells to protect themselves. They act in a planned and methodical way to save themselves from sea turtles, sea birds, fish and whales, all of which are their enemies. When they swim away from their enemies, their entire body gives off light. However, when their enemies attempt to bite them, they turn off the light in their bell-shaped parts and detach from their bodies their tentacles, where the light is still turned on. In this way, their enemies are attracted to the tentacles. Taking advantage of this situation, the jellyfish immediately swim away.

The Portuguese man-of-war is a giant variety of jellyfish which is also known as the "blue jellyfish." It lives in all tropical and temperate climate zones, including the Mediterranean .

A Portuguese man-of-war has a deep blue sail-like organ that rises up to 20 cm from the sea's surface. It is this organ that enables the animal to swim and move. In its spiral-shaped tentacles are capsules containing toxins which cause paralysis.

All these features of jellyfish are interesting. How can a creature made almost entirely of water, that withers and dies as soon as it is exposed to the sun, produce chemical substances? And how could it develop tactics to confuse its enemies?

The jellyfish lacks eyes to see its prey and enemies, nor does it have a brain. It is only a jelly-like water mass, even though it performs conscious behavior such as hunting by employing various tactics, and escaping from its enemies. It is evident that the mind producing such solutions cannot belong to a jellyfish. When such pieces of information about the jellyfish are examined from this perspective, we inescapably arrive at very important conclusions that broaden our horizons. One who reflects upon jellyfish, and their features and actions, will understand that they can't do anything on their own, and that they are controlled by a power that has authority over everything. This power, which has no equal, belongs to God. Creating a dazzling array of animals of various kinds, God manifests His superior wisdom and matchless knowledge in these creatures. The jellyfish is only one example of this.

THE INVALIDITY OF THE CLAIM THAT THE IDEA THAT WHALES EVOLVED FROM BEARS DID NOT ORIGINATE WITH DARWIN

Since they are unable to account for a mammal that lives in the sea, Darwinists are unable to invent a scenario that might account for the existence of the whale. They merely make do with claiming that a land-dwelling life form returned to the sea. Darwin claimed that whales evolved from bears hunting small insects on dry land. But Celal Şengör rejected this embarrassing claim on Darwin’s behalf, saying that no such thing had ever appeared in any edition of Darwin’s book. But the fact is that in the first, 1865 edition of his The Origin of Species, Darwin wrote:

"In North America the black bear was seen ... swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale."(The Origin of Species, 1st edition, chapter 6, p. 184)

This passage was removed from later editions of the book, but he regretted its removal. In one of his letters he said:

“I still maintain that there is no special difficulty in a bear's mouth being enlarged to any degree useful to its changing habits.” (More Letters of Charles Darwin, Francis Darwin, 1903, p. 162)

The Wall Street Journal, the New York-based international financial and current affairs daily, carried a report titled “An Islamic Creationist Stirs a New Kind of Darwinian Struggle” in its 18 March, 2009, issue in its Europe and Asia edition. In the report of the paper, which has a daily readership of 2 million, carried extracts from Andrew Higgins' interview with Mr. Adnan Oktar.

The report stated that Mr. Oktar had challenged Dawkins, as a pagan priest, to a debate, and that he had offered a prize of 10 million Turkish lira to anyone producing a single fossil proving evolution. The report also carried a picture of the cover of the Atlas. The principle passages in the article read as follows:

Mr. Oktar Has Plenty of Fans in Turkey... Adnan Oktar ... is working on the fifth volume of a 14-part masterwork that he says will bury Darwinism once and for all."Darwin and his theory are dead," says Mr. Oktar, founder and honorary president of the Science Research Foundation, an Istanbul outfit dedicated to debunking the Victorian-era English naturalist. Darwin[ism], says [Mr. Oktar], is "SATAN'S BIGGEST TRICK ON HUMANITY." ... The physical weight of Mr. Oktar's work ... is considerable. Each volume of his anti-Darwin magnum opus, "Atlas of Creation," weighs more than 13 pounds. ... His "Atlas of Creation" produces thousands of pictures of fossils of birds, snakes and other creatures side by side with what he says are their identical modern kin. ... Mr. Oktar ... believes that "JUST 10 PAGES OF MY BOOK CAN DEFEAT DAWKINS."

Bush, Faith Changed My Life / Daily Yeni Safak / 13.11.2008

U.S. President Bush told world leaders ... "Faith changed my life a long time ago."

Participating in the Peace Culture Conference held by the U.N. General Council, Bush said that faith had changed his life a long time ago and had strengthened him in the face of adversity during his time as president. In his speech at the conference, scheduled to last 2 days and intended to construct a bridge between faiths and cultures, Bush said, “My faith will also support me in the rest of my life.”

Recent reports that many people across the world are now turning to religion have received wide coverage in the media. Thanks to this return to faith, people who believe are able to exhibit more positive, constructive and powerful behavior in the face of events that might appear to be unfortunate. In the Qur’an, Allah tells His servants to turn to the religion, the only means of salvation in this world and the Hereafter:

With their thorny exteriors, starfish (phylum: Echinodermata) have survived for hundreds of millions of years. Starfish alive 420 million years ago had the same characteristics as those alive today. This is a fact that evolutionists will never be able to explain, showing that living creatures did not evolve, but were created.

AL-FATIRThe Creator; The Originator

“O My Lord, You have granted power to me on Earth and taught me the true meaning of events. O Originator of the heavens and Earth, You are my Friend in this world and the next. So take me as a Muslim at my death, and join me to the people who are righteous.” (Surah Yusuf, 101)

Earth has a special design that supports life. Its location in space and its special structure, which meets the needs of all living beings, make it clear that this planet is the product of a superior wisdom. Our planet's living beings show that an astonishing design is inherent in all of them. Gifted with an appropriate bodily structure, every living being lives in a suitable setting.

This aside, as we focus more on the details of their formation, the fact of creation appears more clearly. Each cell, the basic unit of every living being, has a perfect system and such a flawless order that it is a clear refutation of the unbelievers' claim that life somehow created itself or is the result of a series of coincidence.

All that we see around us carries traces of an intelligent and purposeful design—a design that belongs to our Creator: Allah. Our Lord's artistry is visible in any detail. Allah relates His system's inherent perfection, as follows:

He Who created the seven heavens in layers. You will not find any flaw in the creation of the All-Merciful. Look again—do you see any gaps? Then look again and again. Your sight will return to you dazzled and exhausted! (Surat al-Mulk, 3-4)Say: “Am I to take anyone other than Allah as my protector, the Bringer into Being of the heavens and Earth, He Who feeds and is not fed?” Say: “I am commanded to be the first of the Muslims” and “Do not be among the idolaters.” (Surat al-An‘am, 14)Their Messengers said: “Is there any doubt about Allah, the Bringer into Being of the heavens and Earth? He summons you to forgive you for your wrong actions and to defer you until a specified time.” They said: “You are nothing but human beings like ourselves who want to debar us from what our fathers worshipped; so bring us a clear authority.” (Surah Ibrahim, 10)

AGRICULTURE MUST NOT BE IGNORED

What He Said

MPL TV, November 21-2008Adnan Oktar: But let me say that this crisis may be very risky. What we need in the face of it IS FOR AGRICULTURE TO BE GIVEN VERY SERIOUS PRIORITY. Livestock raising and agriculture. In other words, state support for that sector should be 10 times what it is for other institutions. Livestock raising and agriculture. This needs considerable state support. In other words, our livestock and agriculture production need to be 3 or 5 times greater than they are now. This is enormously important. And it is an extremely serious precaution. Attaching priority to livestock raising and agriculture is the way to preventing really terrible developments.

Al Jazeera, December 13-2008Adnan Oktar: THE MOST RATIONAL SOLUTION IS TO ATTACH PRIORITY TO AGRICULTURE AND LIVESTOCK RAISING. The solution lies in providing ample support for the agricultural sector, and provision of state support for the livestock raising sector, for individuals or organizations trading in, raising or otherwise involved with large and small livestock and poultry. In addition, if necessary the state must set up its own enterprises and businesses in order to create plenty and abundance.

What Happened

Milliyet, December 31-2008A Message for Mr. Tayyip from Young Turkish People in New York

AGRICULTURE IS VERY IMPORTANT, but you are ignoring it. REMEMBER THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE. MAKE USE OF THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR IN MAINTAINING ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CALM after the crisis

Islam is a religion that means "peace". In the Qur'an, the Holy Book of Islam, God commands believers to bring peace and security to the world. Terrorism and all other mischief on Earth are the very acts that Muslims are commanded by God to stand against. The Islamic morality is the cure for terrorism, not the source of it. This website is launched to reveal that any kind of terror and barbarism is against Islam, and Muslims share the sorrows of the victims of terrorism.

The progress of science makes it clear that living beings have an extremely complex structure and an order too perfect to have come into being by coincidence. This is evidence to the fact that living beings are created by an All-Powerful Creator with superior knowledge. Recently, for instance, the Human Genome Project unraveled the evidence for intelligent design in the human genes. In this book, the evidence for the creation has once more been disclosed for all to see.

The False Proof that Life Could Have Formed Spontaneously on the Primeval Earth

For their only evidence of this claim, evolutionists point to the Miller Experiment, carried out in 1953. Yet that experiment produced no living cell. All that happened was that a few simple amino acids were synthesized. But it is mathematically impossible for amino acids to assume the correct sequence and constitute proteins, and for these then to give rise to the cell, by chance. In addition, the amino acids that Miller synthesized were irrelevant and meaningless, because in his experiment Miller employed gasses that did not exist in the primeval Earth's atmosphere.